Se Hace Camino Al Andar

A major change happened while I was away. Actually, not a change so much as an initiative, a push for change. We’re moving to a grade-level team structure, with each grade level in our department represented by a team leader, and a team of teachers. There’s considerable overlap between the teams, since most of us teach more than one grade level. I’m the team leader for the E5 (Juniors) team. I can tell you right, it will be a challenge. I think a lot of teachers will see this as a threat to their autonomy, one of the few things that belong to us in the building, and just barely. One of the tasks of each team is to develop a calendar of lessons. I don’t think this is unreasonable. I’ve always maintained that there should benchmarks for each grade level, in terms of what skills and content they study, when. A calendar of lessons doesn’t mean we all need to be teaching the same exact material at the same exact time. Rather, it’s a way of making sure that as our students move up to the next grade, teachers can make some assumptions about what students learned the previous year and students can sort of stay on the same page, if not in ability, at least in knowledge. Basically, I see the calendar of lessons as an outline of what genres and skills will be (un)covered as the year progresses. I think some teachers think it means that they will be told when to teach specific books and other content.The other challenge is communication. We all have very different schedules and it will be difficult to find a common planning time. Towards that end, I’ve opted for e-mail communication for now, and set up a community on the EducationBridges elgg. I sent an e-mail out yesterday, by way of introduction, and have only gotten one response back. I’m a little nervous but maybe it’s too soon to tell. I don’t feel like battling my fellow teachers, so if there are teachers that don’t want to participate, I’m not pushing. I’ll do what I can on my end and keep the team in the loop.  

It’s not too late to join Tech Thursdays! Here’s a flyer: Tech Thursdays

The next meeting is November 8th. If you are interested, please shoot me an e-mail, or e-mail the folks noted at the bottom of the flyer. Hope to see you there!

Cross-posted at Inquiry.

Ok. I’m back from two glorious weeks in Italy, an old married lady now. The kids were happy to see me and the first question for many was “Miss, are you pregnant yet?” All in due time, kiddies!

Anyway, I guess I shouldn’t have been too surprised that my students didn’t do much but busy work while I was gone, even though I left specific assignments for them. It’s just as well because, control freak as I am, I would rather do it with them anyway. That’s the only way to get it done the right way, yeah?

So, I know I’m really back in my routine now because as usual I’m running late. I’ll be back later with more.

Photo taken by Ken Stein. 

Folks, tomorrow is the big day! I’m off to the chuppah to seal the deal. Then, it’s off to Italy for two weeks, so I’ll be back then with a ton of pictures.

Olmstead/Wasserman 21 is the class blog of a colleague I met at NCTE last year, in Nashville. His sophomores are posting on current events, and Jeff has put out a call for readers, so that his students will see that their audience goes beyond just each other.

[cross-posted at Inquiry]

I gave my AP students a wedding gift today! This week is crazy for me, since Sunday is the big day. My AP students were supposed to hand in an essay tomorrow but because I’ve been so busy, I haven’t had time nor energy to read their drafts and return them in time for them to submit a final draft. So, I told them today that I wouldn’t collect final drafts until after I get back from Italy. Boy, were they happy to hear that! This is also gives students more time to hand in a rough draft. If they get it to me by Thursday, I can return them Friday (it doesn’t take very long to read rough drafts, since I don’t proofread the first time around– I read to offer advice about where they might take the essay and help them to plug holes, if there are any.)

Today, I did a fishbowl for the first time. I wanted to introduce my AP class to a Writing Project-style writing conference, which features:

1. Small groups (no more than 3)
2. A copy of one’s essay for each person in the group
3. A specific request by each writer of the listeners/readers (I need help with transitions, etc)
4. Writer reads, group listens
5. When the writer is done, group first offers one thing they liked about the essay, then addresses writer’s specific request while writer takes notes and asks for clarification
6. Repeat 3-5 for each member of the group (this is why groups need to be tiny)

So, I did a fishbowl with three volunteers (I only needed two but when everyone was straggling in, three girls made a beeline for the middle of the room when they saw the three desks set up and heard me say I would need volunteers…) I sat in the middle of the room, with the three girls while the rest of the class surrounded us. I explained both the fishbowl concept, and the writing conference that we would be modelling. I used an essay that I wrote two summers ago, at Teachers’ College, about a boy who spit in my face, in 9th grade. In addition to giving copies of the essay to the three girls, I gave each student a copy since I knew it would be hard for them hear every word (it’s big room with lousy acoustics and our building is in the path of a flight pattern).

After the writing conference, I asked everyone to turn their papers over and jot down the observations they made during the fishbowl about the conference–what we did, what was said, how I responded, etc. One of the girls who participated in the fishbowl volunteered to chart everyone’s responses, so I stayed off to the side and let her run the show, occasionally asking for clarification or elaboration.

If everyone has a draft by Thursday, then we might be able to do writing conferences for real on Friday. I’m hoping so… I think it’ll make their final drafts much better!

As for my juniors….ugh. I really want them to be able to work independently but it’s not happening. They are just not there yet. I’m also finding that I need to take the longer short stories and break them down. While I was grading papers today, I was suddenly seized by the thought that I should break them up into installments, TV mini-series style ( I even remembered to write down this little gem, which is rare…though I wrote it on scrap and who knows if it’ll still be on my desk tomorrow?!) Anyway, not a new idea, I’m aware but I’m thick and it just occurred to me.

I’ll talk about sophomores some other time. They drive me nuts.

In other news, for you local NYC teachers, Tech Thursdays is starting up again. Tech Thursdays is a tech initiative of the New York City Writing Project, in which teachers support each other in using technology and Web 2.0 in their classrooms. For more information, shoot me an e-mail.

I’ve started a community board as part of an experiment/project with The Reflective Teacher but please feel free to use the forum to communicate with each other, if you so desire.

The Community

One of my resolutions this year was to regularly reflect on my practice. I’ve been passive about it, not really writing it down but yesterday, finding myself with a rare bit of time to kill, I finally did.

It was not a great teaching week for me. Nothing I did was energizing and exciting, except for a few discussions here and there in my AP class. A lot of it has to do with my total lack of energy, owing to lost sleep over the impending nuptials. I haven’t slept through the night in a few weeks, and it definitely affects my teaching. I’m determined to get over that this weekend. I have one week before I leave my students for two weeks and I want to leave a good impression. Two weeks is a long time for teenagers!

In my 11th grade Regents prep course, I’ve tried to focus mostly on content, rather than relying heavily on straight “Regents Prep.” American Literature is typically covered (uncovered?) in 11th grade, and I’ve begun with American Gothic literature. We’ve done a lot of reading but no writing at all, except for various graphic organizers, so one of my goals this week is to have my students produce an essay by Friday. At the heart of every Regents task is synthesis. That is the basic underlying skill that students need to demonstrate in their writing, I’ve noticed.

So, where to begin? The kids have read 5 short stories: The Lottery, The Black Cat, The Tell-Tale Heart, The Minister’s Black Veil and The Fall of the House of Usher. We’ll need to refresh our memories of each story. Easy enough. Next, I need a question that will allow the students to tie the stories together, either all of them or some combination thereof. The question could be as simple as asking them to show how each story fits the genre of American Gothic, or as complicated as offering a quote, a la Critical Lens, and asking them to tie the stories to the quote. I’m leaning towards the latter as it would be a good opportunity to work in some straightforward Regents prep. The tricky part, now, is finding that good quote that will challenge them but allow them to feel successful. The key is first deciding what theme ties the stories together, then finding a quote that fits that theme, I think. It’ll take a little brainpower and google legwork. I’ll keep you posted.

I’ve also been focusing quite a bit on literary elements and techniques. My feeling is that the kids know what literary elements and techniques are but they don’t necessarily know how it contributes to the meaning of a story. I’ve been pushing the point that writers use these techniques on purpose, by choice and so it is up to us, the readers, to figure out why the writer made that choice. I’m trying to think in terms of an arch in my approach to teaching elements and techniques. I can’t quite figure out how to draw an arch, so use your imagination here:

We started with plot elements (sources of conflict, characters, themes, setting and so forth). Then, we moved into characterization and looking at how understanding characters helps us understand the story (though I don’t think I was entirely successful here–we need to return to it). Then, we went into the relationship between imagery and setting. From there, I think the natural progression is symbolism, then figurative language. So, when I get back from Italy, that’s where we are going next. For this coming week, though, I’m determined to focus on producing a piece of writing.

How do I know?

I’m a klutz and I bruise easily. Bad combination. So, I have two huge bruises–one on my arm that is visible when I wear short sleeves, and another on the inside of my leg just above my knee that is visible when I wear a skirt.

One of my students saw the bruise on my arm and said, “OMG Mizz, wha’ happened?”

I explained about my klutziness and showed her the other one on my leg.

“Is your man beatin’ on you? ‘Cuz if he is, I’ma mess him up!”

I assured her that he wasn’t and that I’m really and truly a big klutz…I’m forever bumping into the desks in my room and slamming myself into doorways and so forth.

[It's not the first time a kid has jumped to my aid in the face of a perceived threat. (On a field trip a few years back, a student wanted to assault a crazy, drunk, old man who stepped on my foot!)]

In other news, there’s a week left to the wedding and the kids noticed my right eyelid twitching. Scary. Though, one girl did said it was good luck. If the left one was twitching, that would be bad luck. I’m very relieved to hear that, I guess.